When South Dakota approved a law sharply restricting abortion last week, many pro-life Republicans around the country sounded a loud hallelujah. But at least one very senior Republican did not seem at all eager to join in the chorus. As Ken Mehlman, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, flew to Memphis to attend the first gathering of potential GOP presidential candidates for 2008, a NEWSWEEK reporter asked him if he had anything to say about the South Dakota law. “No,” he said. Did he plan to make a statement on that topic at the Republican gathering in Memphis? “No” was the answer. Would he ever be willing to comment on the topic, other than to say that it’s up to the states to make their own choices on abortion? Again, the answer was “no.” The look on his face was more expressive. It appeared to ask, “Are you kidding?” Why such reticence to embrace glad tidings? After all, the abortion issue has been good to the Republican Party. It has energized Roman Catholic and evangelical grass-roots activists and allowed the GOP to paint pro-choice Democrats as cultural extremists, out of step with Main Street and the heartland. But […]
A widely promoted B vitamin regimen for the prevention of heart attacks and strokes has shown no beneficial effects in people at high risk, researchers are reporting today. The hypothesis was that B vitamins folic acid, vitamin B12 and vitamin B6 can protect people against homocysteine, an amino acid that some doctors said was as important and dangerous a risk factor for heart disease as cholesterol. Studies of populations showed that the higher the homocysteine level in the blood, the greater the risk of heart attacks and strokes. And studies of animals indicated that homocysteine can actually damage tender linings of arteries, setting the stage for atherosclerosis. B vitamins, however, reduce blood levels of homocysteine. The vitamins, which are found in a variety of foods, including fruits and vegetables, have no known harmful effects. And if people take them as supplements, their homocysteine levels plummet. About 35 percent of Americans take B vitamins, mostly in the form of multivitamin pills, according to the Council on Responsible Nutrition, a trade group. So it seemed reasonable to many doctors and patients to expect that taking the vitamins would be protective. It might be even better than […]
My apologies that there was no Sunday edition. MY ISP, Cox Cable, went out and did not come back online until this morning. — Stephan
WASHINGTON — Supreme Court justices keep many opinions private but Sandra Day O’Connor no longer faces that obligation. Yesterday, the retired justice criticized Republicans who criticized the courts. She said they challenge the independence of judges and the freedoms of all Americans. O’Connor’s speech at Georgetown University was not available for broadcast but NPR’s legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg was there. Nina Totenberg: In an unusually forceful and forthright speech, O’Connor said that attacks on the judiciary by some Republican leaders pose a direct threat to our constitutional freedoms. O’Connor began by conceding that courts do have the power to make presidents or the Congress or governors, as she put it really, really angry. But, she continued, if we don’t make them mad some of the time we probably aren’t doing our jobs as judges, and our effectiveness, she said, is premised on the notion that we won’t be subject to retaliation for our judicial acts. The nation’s founders wrote repeatedly, she said, that without an independent judiciary to protect individual rights from the other branches of government those rights and privileges would amount to nothing. But, said O’Connor, as the founding fathers knew statutes and constitutions don’t protect […]
WASHINGTON – Reporters who write about government surveillance could be prosecuted under proposed legislation that would solidify the administration’s eavesdropping authority, according to some legal analysts who are concerned about dramatic changes in U.S. law. But an aide to the bill’s chief author, Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, said that is not the intention of the legislation. “It in no way applies to reporters in any way, shape or form,” said Mike Dawson, a senior policy adviser to DeWine, responding to an inquiry Friday afternoon. “If a technical fix is necessary, it will be made.” The Associated Press obtained a copy of the draft of the legislation, which could be introduced as soon as next week. The draft would add to the criminal penalties for anyone who “intentionally discloses information identifying or describing” the Bush administration’s terrorist surveillance program or any other eavesdropping program conducted under a 1978 surveillance law. Fines of up to $1 million, 15 years in jail Under the boosted penalties, those found guilty could face fines of up to $1 million, 15 years in jail or both. Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, said the measure […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
